INDIANAPOLIS (USBWA) – The U.S. Basketball Writers Association has selected 40 standout men's college basketball players for its 2023-24 Oscar Robertson Trophy and All-America Watch List. Members of the association's board of directors chose the players that will be considered as contenders for the National Player of the Year.
The 40 honored players for the Oscar Robertson Trophy and All-America consideration will be placed on the association's annual awards ballot, which will be distributed to members today. The ballot also includes the Wayman Tisdale National Freshman Player of the Year Award, the Henry Iba National Coach of the Year Award and the 15-man USBWA All-America Team. Members will have until Sunday, March 10 to vote for all of the honors that are based on regular-season performance. Write-ins will be accepted on the ballot as well.
The USBWA board will then review and verify the results so that its All-America Team, Freshman Player of the Year and National Coach of the Year will be announced before the start of the men's NCAA Tournament.
The Oscar Robertson Trophy winner is to be announced at the NCAA Men's Final Four in Glendale, Ariz., from April 6-8. The formal presentation of the trophy will follow at the annual USBWA Awards Luncheon hosted by the Missouri Athletic Club in St. Louis.
Following is the complete watch list:
- Armando Bacot, North Carolina
- Keion Brooks Jr., Washington
- Johni Broome, Auburn
- Tommy Bruner, Denver
- Boo Buie, Northwestern
- Devin Carter, Providence
- L.J. Cryer, Houston
- Johnell Davis, Florida Atlantic
- R.J. Davis, North Carolina
- Tucker DeVries, Drake
- Hunter Dickinson, Kansas
- Zach Edey, Purdue
- Terrence Edwards Jr., James Madison
- Kyle Filipowski, Duke
- Enrique Freeman, Akron
- P.J. Hall, Clemson
- Blake Hinson, Pittsburgh
- DaRon Holmes II, Dayton
- Xavier Johnson, Southern Illinois
- David Jones, Memphis
- Jordan King, Richmond
- Dalton Knecht, Tennessee
- Tyler Kolek, Marquette
- Jaedon LeDee, San Diego State
- Caleb Love, Arizona
- Kevin McCullar Jr., Kansas
- Tristen Newton, Connecticut
- Great Osobor, Utah State
- Antonio Reeves, Kentucky
- Kadary Richmond, Seton Hall
- Hunter Sallis, Wake Forest
- Baylor Scheierman, Creighton
- Mark Sears, Alabama
- Terrence Shannon, Illinois
- Jamal Shead, Houston
- K.J. Simpson, Colorado
- Braden Smith, Purdue
- Isaiah Stevens, Colorado State
- Tyler Thomas, Hofstra
- Vonterius Woolbright, Western Carolina
By conference: ACC 6, Big East 5, Big 12 4, Big Ten 4, SEC 4, Mountain West 3, Pac-12 3, American Athletic 2, Atlantic 10 2, Missouri Valley 2, CAA 1, MAC 1, Southern 1, Summit 1, Sun Belt 1.
The roster of the nation’s most outstanding players includes Purdue center Zach Edey, last year’s Oscar Robertson Trophy winner and one of only three returning USBWA All-Americans to make the list. Edey currently is second in the nation in scoring at 23.2 points per game and third in rebounding averaging 11.9 per game. Marquette senior guard Tyler Kolek, a second team USBWA All-American last season, is tied for the national lead in assists at 7.6 per game and heads up five selections from the Big East Conference. North Carolina forward/center Armando Bacot, a third team USBWA All-American last season, also returns among the list-leading six picks from the Atlantic Coast Conference. Upperclassmen occupy 38 of the 40 spots.
Edey seeks to become only the eighth player to earn multiple Oscar Robertson Trophies. Kentucky’s Oscar Tshiebwe won the last two awards, but prior to that the last to repeat was Virginia center Ralph Sampson and his three-peat from 1981-83. Edey would join Tshiebwe and Sampson as the only repeat winners of the last 50 seasons with a second win.
The 7-4 center from Toronto, Ontario, scored 35 points with 15 rebounds and two assists in third-ranked Purdue’s 84-76 win over Michigan on Sunday. It was his seventh career 30-15 game and moved him into second place on Purdue’s career scoring list and the top 15 on the Big Ten’s all-time scoring list with 2,197 points. He is just 125 points behind the Boilermakers’ career leader Rick Mount (2,323). Edey, who has 19 double-doubles this season, needs three points and 22 rebounds to become the first player in Big Ten history with 2,200 career points and 1,200 career rebounds.
Purdue also has sophomore guard Braden Smith on the list, one of two sophomores on the roster. Smith is tied for the Big Ten’s assists lead. RJ Davis, currently the ACC’s leading scorer at 21.0 points per game, joins Bacot, the ACC’s leading rebounder at 10.41 per game, as North Carolina’s two representatives. Both Davis and Bacot earned spots on the weekly five-man Oscar Robertson Trophy National Players of the Week teams twice during the season along with Kolek and Edey, among others. The rest of the ACC representations are Duke’s Kyle Filipowski, Clemson’s P.J. Hall, Pitt’s Blake Hinson and Wake Forest’s Hunter Sallis.
Houston, the Big 12 leader, has a pair of players among the 40 in L.J. Cryer and super senior Jamal Shead, and Kansas has the other two of the Big 12’s four representatives in Hunter Dickinson, another two-time weekly Oscar honoree, and Kevin McCullar Jr. The Big 12, Big Ten and SEC each have four players. The SEC’s three leading scorers – Alabama’s Mark Sears, Tennessee’s Dalton Knecht and Kentucky’s Antonio Reeves – are on the list along with its defensive stalwart Johni Broome of Auburn.
The five other players who twice made the Oscar Robertson players of the week teams are also reprented – Boo Buie of Northwestern, Knecht of Tennessee, Jaedon LeDee of San Diego State, Tyler Thomas of Hofstra and Vonterius Woolbright of Western Carolina. Thomas leads the nation in three-pointers with 3.67 makes per game and is fifth nationally in scoring at 22.1 ppg. Woolbright – with three triple-doubles this season – and Akron’s Enrique Freeman pace the nation with 23 double-doubles each. Freeman is the nation’s top rebounder at present at 13.0 rpg with Woolbright second at 12.1.
The Big East is alone in second to the ACC in player nods with five. Besides Marquette’s Kolek, the Big East contingent includes its current scoring leader, Devin Carter of Providence, and one of its top stats leaders in Creighton’s Baylor Scheierman (second in rebounding at 8.67 and third in scoring at 18.41). UConn’s Tristen Newton and Seton Hall’s Kadary Richmond round off the list.
Three of the Pac-12’s leading scorers are on the roster with Washington’s Keion Brooks Jr. (20.96 ppg) heading up the list followed by Colorado’s K.J. Simpson (3rd, 19.56) and Arizona’s Caleb Love (4th, 19.41). Simpson is also second in the Pac-12 in assists currently (4.59). The Mountain West matches the Pac-12 with three players on the list. LeDee (20.56 ppg) of San Diego State, a two-time Oscar Robertson weekly honoree, and Utah State’s Great Osobor (17.81) are 1-2 in MW scoring with Osobor also leading the leagie in rebounding (9.11). Colorado State’s Isaiah Stevens is the MW’s assists leader (7.39).
Tommy Bruner of Denver, the country’s scoring leader by more than two points per game with a 25.3 average, headlines the 14 players on the list hailing from mid-major conferences along with Woolbright and Freeman. Xavier Johnson of Southern Illinois, third in scoring nationally, is also among the 40-man field.
Since the 1958-59 season, the USBWA has named a National Player of the Year. In 1998, the award was named in honor of the University of Cincinnati Hall of Famer and two-time USBWA Player of the Year Oscar Robertson. It is the nation's oldest award and the only one named after a former player.
The U.S. Basketball Writers Association was formed in 1956 at the urging of then-NCAA Executive Director Walter Byers. With some 900 members worldwide, it is one of the most influential organizations in college basketball. It has selected an All-America team since the 1956-57 season. For more information on the USBWA and the Oscar Robertson Trophy, contact executive director Malcolm Moran at 814-574-1485.